“I couldn’t help but steal the images”, says Hong Kong-born artist Yau Ching in the voice-over of her short film Is There Anything Specific You Want Me to Tell You About? (1992), a reflection on exile, tourism and the longing to ‘possess’ other cultures. This month’s selection by Electric Shadows dives deep into appropriation. In his La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (1973), French sinologist René Viénet takes the footage of an existing Hong Kong martial arts movie to recontextualize images, words and views. Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), a Japanese New Wave classic by Toshio Matsumoto, is a loose adaptation of an ancient Greek tragedy that portrays LGBTQ culture of 1960s Tokyo.
